[Merged] The races of the world, Please something other then Elves/Dwarves/Orcs/Humans?

[ShadySands]

I hope they include humans, I've always wanted to be one

[ComradeGoby]

Also stop telling us how bad we are if we are "racist" to non humans.

 

They aren't human! It's not a real life 1:1 thing

 

On a side note I'd like to see a wagonload of racism in the game, real people hate each other for all kinds of gloriously retarded reasons, and they express it, verisimilitude takes a big hit when all the races can "just get along".

 

Yeah but I'm tired of having my human character being told he is bad for not trusting of disliking other species.

[Maddas]

For me 2 options are best:

 

1. Only humans with other races and creatures being extremely rare (like a fairytale eh)

2. No humans or traditional races (like Talislanta) for a completely alien and otherworldly feel

 

Considering all the talk about souls, its pretty certain that the game was considered with humans at least in mind.

Its just that I'm tired as hell of the dwarves, orcs and elves. I can't stand them any more.

 

But I would settle to some other new race, as long as it isn't derivative.

 

Agreed.

 

I would like to see either fairytale 'races' or 'races' from mythical lore that we already have developed as civilizations IRL: centaurs, minotaurs, cyclopses, jinn, deevs, etc. -- and that's just off the top of my head from Greeco-Persian mythology.

 

There's a lot of great mythology and lore already built into our 'real life' history, that stuff could be used in an alternate setting.

[Nivenus]

On topic: I could go either way. Non-traditional races would be a welcome change, but plenty of developers have shown they can do interesting things with "Tolkien-esque" races, which it's worth noting are closer to D&D-esque races inspired by Norse culture with heavy influences from Tolkien's interpretation anyway.

 

So, yeah, I'd like some new races, but I can live with the old ones if they're used creatively and aren't just treated as stereotypes.

 

 

Also stop telling us how bad we are if we are "racist" to non humans.

 

They aren't human! It's not a real life 1:1 thing

 

On a side note I'd like to see a wagonload of racism in the game, real people hate each other for all kinds of gloriously retarded reasons, and they express it, verisimilitude takes a big hit when all the races can "just get along".

 

Yeah but I'm tired of having my human character being told he is bad for not trusting of disliking other species.

 

Uh... why?

 

I understand that comparing humans and dwarves (let alone human and turians) is different than comparing say Caucasians and blacks, but if you treat someone entirely on the basis of their racial or species origin without regard to their individual value as a person, it's still analogous.

[Foefaller]

Instead of Elves and Dwarves, I want Tuatha De Danann and Dwarrows

 

 

Joking aside, yes, let us play races that wren't brought to modern fantasy by Tolkien.

[drake heath]

Drow are in the game I guess, the map mentions, in a far corner a "Lake of Drow Tombs" so they might be extinct...

 

I think having the elves extinct would be interesting, like how in TES the "dwarves" are all gone.

 

But regardless, it has to have humans in it. I like playing as a human, I find them fascinating.

Edited September 16, 2012 by drake heath

[Humanoid]

It was pointed out somewhere else here that it's just the fancy edging obscuring the full text - it's "drowned tombs" as confirmed by Josh.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Humanoid

[The Sharmat]

And god, please no monocultures. Humans have tons of different social norms and religions and philosophies. Why shouldn't elves?

[drake heath]

Oh, okay.

 

It still would be cool if they killed off all the elves, dwarves, and orcs, or at least just the elves...

 

I'd like intelligent, imperialistic, non-tribal orcs. Kinda like 19th century Imperial Germany.

[Grimnir]

Glad this topic was made, saves me the trouble.

 

I've seen enough elves/dwarves/orcs/etc to last a lifetime. If they must be used, interpret or present them in ways we haven't seen 50 dozen times before. Guild Wars 2 did a pretty good job of this (Elves = Sylvari, Gnomes = Asura, etc). When I explore the world I don't want to already be familiar with those who dwell there.

 

Preferably, plunder your imaginations and come up with some ORIGINAL races. It's not that hard, is it?

[HangedMan]

Oh, okay.

 

It still would be cool if they killed off all the elves, dwarves, and orcs, or at least just the elves...

 

I'd like intelligent, imperialistic, non-tribal orcs. Kinda like 19th century Imperial Germany.

I like this idea.

[Pop]

I have no fundamental compunctions about standard fantasy "type" races. I would ask only that their design avoid the trappings of D&D fantasy. That is to say, I don't want humans to be the "neutral", jack-of-all-trades race, with other races being largely defined by one or two physical / temperamental traits. That means elves who aren't natural bowmen or druids but comparatively poor front-line fighters, dwarves who are natural fighters but poor mages, etc. Essentially, I want diversity of character types to be encouraged, not discouraged, by the races and their attributes. I would rather see fllavor differences at character creation be provided by background traits and the like, Arcanum-style.

 

I would prefer that race instead affect the game experience in other ways - change the way people react to you, change quest options, block off opportunities and create new ones, etc. Essentially make races in the setting comparable to races in real life - naturally equal in ability, but subject to different treatment, different opportunities, and different hardships, and joined to different cultures. This is also something that Arcanum sort of hinted at, if a bit crudely, through its point-based NPC disposition system. Simulated racism! Marvelous.

 

Depending on how the character creation system and skill-building works, you could have race-specific skills that you can learn or earn, either naturally through a leveling process or through NPCs, but none of them would explicitly push the choice of race as a whole toward one sort of character or another.

 

While you're at it, try and avoid making factions or kingdoms / states in the game into homogeneous, thinly veiled analogues to real-world historical European nation-states. I find it to be generally dull.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Pop

[WDeranged]

Oh, okay.

 

It still would be cool if they killed off all the elves, dwarves, and orcs, or at least just the elves...

 

I'd like intelligent, imperialistic, non-tribal orcs. Kinda like 19th century Imperial Germany.

 

I'd be so cool with them literally killing off all the elves, dwarves and orcs, a mass genocide with restless spirits plaguing the guilty and wars still being fought on spirit planes...anyway, once again I've stayed up all night because of made up stuff, bedtime

[ComradeGoby]

On topic: I could go either way. Non-traditional races would be a welcome change, but plenty of developers have shown they can do interesting things with "Tolkien-esque" races, which it's worth noting are closer to D&D-esque races inspired by Norse culture with heavy influences from Tolkien's interpretation anyway.

 

So, yeah, I'd like some new races, but I can live with the old ones if they're used creatively and aren't just treated as stereotypes.

 

 

Also stop telling us how bad we are if we are "racist" to non humans.

 

They aren't human! It's not a real life 1:1 thing

 

On a side note I'd like to see a wagonload of racism in the game, real people hate each other for all kinds of gloriously retarded reasons, and they express it, verisimilitude takes a big hit when all the races can "just get along".

 

Yeah but I'm tired of having my human character being told he is bad for not trusting of disliking other species.

 

Uh... why?

 

I understand that comparing humans and dwarves (let alone human and turians) is different than comparing say Caucasians and blacks, but if you treat someone entirely on the basis of their racial or species origin without regard to their individual value as a person, it's still analogous.

 

Because different species can never get along together no matter how hippie and Star Trek you want to make things. It's a fundamental lie.

 

Not to mention things like dwarves clearly being inferior to humans. It's jsut laughable when Orcs (things that in most games are just mass idiots) and dwarves (short people somehow being a threat) are somehow suppossed to be regarded as equal. Elves are only threats because they are always mary sueish and infallible.

 

In other words the Emperor says purge the xeno scum.

 

Also humanity as a species only exists becasue we killed off our competitors. It's jsut human nature and natural in general to be attached to your species.

 

Racism is different becasue that's with two HUMANS. While wanting to bulldoze an elf town to have more space just makes sense.

[Alex Sherman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas-Lag#Known_races

[Pop]

I guess another question I would ask is: Is natural selection at play in this setting? Would all bipedal (assuming all major races are bipedal) races share a common ancestor? Might there be races that are drastically unrelated from an evolutionary standpoint? Keeping in mind that sentient beings are animals too, would you have different diet requirements between races? Different climate preferences? Different mating rituals and family / group dynamics? Could there be races that prey on one another for food?

 

If you hit high stretch goals, and the setting allows for it, would you consider a sentient construct race, without a soul, or possessed of some strange artificial one? Perhaps with entirely different abilities, requiring a unique playstyle.

[Alex Sherman]

wanting to bulldoze an elf town to have more space just makes sense.

 

. . . Does it?

[Pop]

There could be some sort of mad-scientist race that somehow created another, and the two now live at odds, or perhaps even in harmony. Maybe someone played God and won.

[ComradeGoby]

wanting to bulldoze an elf town to have more space just makes sense.

 

. . . Does it?

 

Of course!

 

The human population needs to build more buildings and there is a forest in the way. Get rid of it and anything in the way. That's the way the world works. Look at what humans do to other humans. Now remove the closeness of being the same species and just imagine what will happen.

 

It only makes more sense to get rid of competiting species if they were sentient. A world is a finite place with finite resources.

[puiwaihin]

There's a reason that elves and dwarves are used so often in games. People have a connection to them. Generally, any new race will fall into one of several common archetypes anyway. Just look at Star Trek. You have Kingons, who are nothing but Barbarian clans, Vulcans who are elves but with a thing for logic rather than nature, and Ferengi who are the hobbits (short and comical) but given greed as their main motivator.

 

So, if they don't have "elves" they will almost certainly have a pointy-eared group of erudites or mystics whose comprehension of nature or science are beyond human. And if they don't have "orcs" they'll have some other race of brutish, territorial creatures intent on killing people off who may or may not have a deep sense of honor and culture of their own that the innately racist humans have simply not yet understood.

[SCPPWP]

If we can't have original races could we at least have a wide variety of varients? If you do manage to build us a rich and culturally diverse world then don't just give us "elves", "dwarves", "humans", but let us choose from a range of different cultural groups too, with actual roleplaying implications.

 

In truth I'd love a game with none of these. They all carry too much creative baggage. I want a world that's fresh, where humans have already warred themselves into extinction, bloodthirsty tribes of dwarven cannibals infest the jungles, elves are a sub-intelligent slave race, and the instead the playable races include living constructs, elementals, mantis-people, and shape-shifting amoeboids. All with their own original cultures that are believable outcomes of the history of the world and its people, rather than well-worn and rebadged archetypes.

Edited September 16, 2012 by SCPPWP

[Alex Sherman]

wanting to bulldoze an elf town to have more space just makes sense.

 

. . . Does it?

 

Of course!

 

The human population needs to build more buildings and there is a forest in the way. Get rid of it and anything in the way. That's the way the world works. Look at what humans do to other humans. Now remove the closeness of being the same species and just imagine what will happen.

 

It only makes more sense to get rid of competiting species if they were sentient. A world is a finite place with finite resources.

 

Nope, don't buy it. At least not the idea that exterminating a nonhuman sentient is somehow more practical than exterminating a human. Many human tribes have been exterminated by neighboring human tribes that were stronger and needed the space, like you said. People are also entirely capable of seeing a group of people as subhuman or worthless, literally dehumanized. So "closeness" is entirely relative.

And yet, many indigenous cultures survived the worst atrocities of warlike conquests, exploitative colonialism, ethnic cleansing and all the other side effects of innate xenophobia. Nothing at all to do with them all being homo erectus, more to do with any number of other issues of practicality. Like, say, a territory sometimes not being worth the cost of holding it. Doesn't matter if the desert wasteland is full of people or talking lizards. If the desert isn't worth it, then what's the point?

[Mystwalker]

You know, there's one type of race I find awfully underrepresented when it comes to RPGs:

 

Shapeshifters.

 

I would absolutely LOVE to see something like a Changeling or Shifter (The half-blood lycanthropes from Eberron). I can't recall any RPG that allowed you to play something like this, and I think it'd be a very interesting design. This would probably be counted as one of the most unique playable races in any CRPG to date. Shapeshifters have always been one of my favorite archetypes, which usually falls down to Class mechanics...But I've always found the prospect of Shapeshifter/Class combo's to be more interesting than Race/Shapeshifting Class. I'd rather play a Werebadger Barbarian than a Human Druid. Just think of how much depth something like that can offer to any class you decide to play.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I recall that Torment had no need of race variation or cheap political subtexts to be successful.

 

That's what we're going for here folks, leave your poor man's RPG's at the door.

 

This entire line of thinking was started with the Witcher, which was fine as the concept was original at the time. But then Dragon Age had to include it, and now we can't have an RPG without foaming at the mouth racists in it. Its annoying now, so skip it.

 

Forget these crude ideas, and give me a good personal story a la Torment.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Strange101]

And god, please no monocultures. Humans have tons of different social norms and religions and philosophies. Why shouldn't elves?

 

+1

 

If you include known races, don't make all elves magical, mistical tree lovers and dwarves beer-drinking-and-fightin' miners. Some different nations/groups within the race would be nice. Some society created by ideological (ideology, not religion as usual!) fanatics or land where only rulers and priests are allowed to study knowledge and use it to enslave the common people, who even can't read etc. Just examples, I hope you'll come up with better ideas ;P

Edited September 16, 2012 by Strange101